This blog is open to anyone who wants to post valid comments on issues that pertain to the ongoing injustice associated with the Israeli-Palestinian issue, other foreign policy issues in the Middle East like Iraq, Iran, and Syria, or issues concerning US governance, propaganda and its function in a so-called democratic nation, corruption of the US system of representation, and any other issue that explains the ongoing decline of the USA.

Evolution of Dispossession

How to Steal a Country?

Monday, March 19, 2007

Will the US Destroy Iran AGAIN?????

The movie "300" has drawn the criticism of Iranians for the nature in which Persians are represented in the movie. As I have not seen the movie yet, I will not comment, but let's consider for a moment this notion that the enemy must be portrayed as a sinister, snarling monster.

On January 20, 2006, Larry Franklin was sentenced to almost 13 years in prison for passing classified information to Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman of AIPAC, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. Rosen and Weismann are currently under indictment for accepting classified information from Franklin [1]. Unbeknownst to all parties, the FBI was secretly surveilling the meetings between Franklin, Rosen and Weissman. What most Americans are unaware of is that Larry Franklin worked in the Pentagon in the Office of Special Plans, which was set up by Donald Rumsfeld. Larry Franklin worked directly under Douglas Feith. 1 year removed from the sentencing of Franklin, Americans were able to tune in to CSPAN and watch the shameless speeches made by prominent US officials to AIPAC concerning Israeli security and the strategic alliance between the US and Israel. As reported in Forward, an American Jewish newspaper that claims dedication to democratic socialism, Vice President Dick Cheney addressed AIPAC and offered the following statement on Monday, March 12, 2007 :

" 'It is simply not consistent,' Cheney said in his Monday speech, 'for anyone to demand aggressive action against the menace that is posed by the Iranian regime while at the same time acquiescing in a retreat from Iraq that would leave Israel’s best friend, the United States, dangerously weakened.' "

The same article in Forward goes on to say :

" Olmert echoed the point in a speech via satellite, warning that premature withdrawal from Iraq would put Israel’s security at risk.

Cheney’s call on pro-Israel activists to oppose withdrawal from Iraq overshadowed the annual AIPAC gathering. Organizers had hoped the plenum would focus on the need for tough economic measures against Iran, without having the effort portrayed publicly as advocating military action against the regime in Tehran.

But the attempts to avoid such a portrayal suffered a blow Monday, when Congressional Quarterly reported on AIPAC's role in blocking a House proposal that would require the Bush administration to get congressional approval before taking military action against Iran. " [2]

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama said in his first speech to AIPAC that "the world must work to stop Iran's uranium enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy." [3] This statement was made on 3/02/2007. Let's briefly examine the underlying events which led Iran to pursue a "radical theocracy" in the first place.

In 1953, Kermit Roosevelt (Teddy Roosevelt's grandson) led a CIA-directed coup against the government of Iran, whose Prime Minister was Mohammed Mossadegh. Operation Ajax was the first coup directed by the fledgling CIA.

President Truman was still in office when Mohammed Mossadegh came to power in Iran. President Truman spoke highly of this Iranian leader. Mohammed Mossadegh, who received a PhD in law from the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, was pro-western, and had already established a parliamentiary system within Iran. Truman was asked to help the British overthrow Mossadegh, but sagely, Truman declined.

Then Eisenhower was elected President of the US. The two Dulles brothers were high ranking members of Eisenhower's cabinet. John Foster Dulles was Secretary of State, and Allen Dulles was the director of the CIA. In the midst of the Cold War, the official reason for the coup was that the US did not want Iran to fall under the evil Communist sphere of the USSR. This was the official reason, though not the real reason the coup occurred.

Mohammed Mossadegh's true crime was that he nationalized Iranian oil. The Anglo-Iranian oil company (now British Petroleum) was basically stealing Iran's oil. Prior to Mossadegh assuming power in Iran, the Anglo-Iranian oil company was paying huges sums of bribe money (though miniscule in comparison to the value of the oil it was looting) to high-ranking Iranian officials so that Anglo-Iranian oil could extract immense volumes of oil and make off with the majority of the profits. Iranians were very poor, and the country was in shambles. Mossadegh put an end to Anglo-Iranian oil's exploitation of Iranian resources. Mossadegh, a very principled leader of Iran, believed that Iran's natural resources should be used to develop Iran's economy and society as a whole, and not used to enrich a domineering British oil company.

Under the banner of "fighting communism" the CIA went charging in, at the behest of the British, and overthrew Mossadegh. Later, the CIA installed the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi. The Shah of Iran was a throwback. Bribery payments resumed, and American oil companies also joined in the feeding frenzy of Iranian oil. All the while, the common people of Iran that Mossadegh served were left neglected by the Shah. The Shah was in power until 1979, when a grassroots revolution that began in 1978 culminated in the Shah's flight from Iran in early 1979. This revolution came at a great expense, from the US standpoint. A new radical Islamic government replaced the government of the Shah. In fact, Iranians took part in a nationwide referendum to establish an Islamic state. The Ayatollah Khomeini was the new leader of Iran, and to be sure the US was not happy with their loyal crooked Shah being deposed.

A new course of action emerged from the US perspective. In 1980, Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Iran, and the US decided to supply weapons to Saddam Hussein in an attempt to defeat the newly-created Islamic Republic in Iran. The US gave Saddam Hussein mustard gas, as well as other weapons systems with which to fight the Iranians. Coincidentally, mustard gas was used on the Kurdish population in Northern Iraq later in the Iran-Iraq war. The nerve agent Sarin and VX were also used in the chemical attacks on the Kurds.

Good questions to ask at this point would be :

What would have happened to Iran had the US minded its own business in 1953?

Would Iran have become a "radical theocracy" as Obama puts it?

Would Iran today be a modern democracy in the Middle East?

Would Iran be a staunch ally of the US because the US decided not to intervene for the sake of British Petroleum or a very weak claim of Communist influence?

Do we see what happens when American officials let fear drive policy? Not many Americans are fully aware of this background history to the the US-Iran conflict. Conveniently, for the US administration, these relevant events have disappeared down Orwell's memory hole.

The following American politicians recently addressed AIPAC : Vice President Dick Cheney, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, House Republican leader John Boehner, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, and presidential candidate Barack Obama. All speakers had critical words concerning Iran, and there was no mention of the history of Mossadegh or the Shah or the many mistakes made by the US concerning Iran. There was no mention of Larry Franklin or AIPAC complicity in Israeli espionage.

If US forces are used for military actions against Iran, it will be directly attributed to the scheming of AIPAC (and the many other pro-Israel NEOCON organizations in the US), and the moral cowardice of US politicians that shamelessly promote Israel's interests, and not the the US national interest.

Walt and Mearsheimer were right. The US-Israel alliance is definitely harming the US and I would like to see one patriotic US leader stand up and angrily say to AIPAC, "Never Again!".